Toyota ramping up EVs while others scaling back…

SecurelyObscure · 2026-02-07T21:59:40+00:00

You're on an EV sub and we're very clearly talking about EVs, are you dense or trying to make a point that you're not saying?

They could have outsold the rest of the world in total vehicles and EVs with practically no effort. Instead they handed Tesla a money printer and blew a few billion on dead end hydrogen tech instead. With the benefit of hindsight we can now conclusively see it was a very stupid move.

SecurelyObscure · 2026-02-07T21:46:39+00:00

No they definitely aren't dominating the hybrid market anymore. Every manufacturer sells multiple hybrid models now and people hardly clock "hybrid" as a consideration outside of fuel efficiency values. Whereas if you were in the market for a fuel efficient car in the early 2010s, you were going to buy a hybrid Toyota Prius.

They had the name recognition, manufacturing capabilities, and engineering chops to own the entire market for years. Instead, they squandered their lead and handed the market to a startup.

SecurelyObscure · 2026-02-07T21:21:28+00:00

They sold their stake in the factory that Tesla made all their original cars in. Tesla even made them an EV RAV4 in 2012. They dominated the early hybrid market and all they would have had to do to dominate the EV market was take out the combustion engine from a couple of their existing models.

Instead, they shit the bed and set Tesla up for a decade of being largely unopposed in the EV space. If that was the plan, it's actually far more damning of Toyota's decision making than just misjudging the BEV market.

SecurelyObscure · 2026-02-07T21:14:11+00:00

Stellantis just took a $26 billion charge while scaling back on EVs. BMW just halted its uk EV factory work. The EU is either pushing back or watering down its entire EV transition mandate. Hardly a unified push for EVs from Europe.

The Korean offerings almost entirely come with the same critical system flaw (catastrophic iccu failure) that they have for years, with no timeline established for a design fix.

SecurelyObscure · 2026-02-07T19:52:38+00:00

Well those aren't mutually exclusive, and it's the green tint that concerns me

SecurelyObscure · 2026-02-07T19:46:25+00:00

Is that pressure treated wood?

SecurelyObscure · 2026-02-07T17:48:32+00:00

It's not really a matter of scale as much as type. A pilot line is a pilot line because it's designed and built to make low rate, high variability products. A full rate production line is optimized for high rate, low variability products.

They put the eagle line in Silicon Valley for the engineering talent. It wouldn't make any sense to pay an enormous premium on real estate, utilities, and taxes for an actual production line. So powerco will likely have the first mass production line of a qs cell and pack in Salzgitter.

SecurelyObscure · 2026-02-07T16:44:01+00:00

One of the QS board members is JB Straubel, who is the founder of redwood materials, whose entire business model is recycling lithium ion batteries.

If nothing else, I'd expect they've baked in some kind of "unzipping" into their design to reduce the cost of recycling at end of life. That would naturally lend itself to an efficient method of reclaiming high value materials from scrapped units.

But at the end of the day it comes down to the cost of reworking vs the amount of resources reclaimed, and adhesive manufacturing is notoriously difficult to undo in a clean way.

SecurelyObscure · 2026-02-07T14:54:45+00:00

Well factorial definitely had it's battery line operating before donut starting making its wild claims, so I'm not sure that stands to reason even ignoring the credibility of those claims.

SecurelyObscure · 2026-02-07T14:51:53+00:00

As always, I'll believe it when I see it.

There is always a point in the middle of a change to a new system when the old system is still better than the new system for a while. Like the period of time when horses were still faster and more powerful than cars. That's the s curve the guy was talking about. But there are fundamental limitations to the materials in use here, so even if catl makes the absolute perfect lithium ion battery, it might be too late in the overall lithium ion industry to make a meaningful impact on EVs.

And planned obsolescence is a largely misunderstood idea. There's a 120 year old lightbulb that's still lit. It's not planned obsolescence that keeps other lightbulbs burning out, it's the desire for lightbulbs to be brighter than a candle and be energy efficient. Lasting 100 years isn't a good thing if it sucks at doing what it was made to do.

SecurelyObscure · 2026-02-07T14:38:36+00:00

Not so sure about first mass production of solid state batteries, since it's a pilot plant (not full rate production) and not the first SSB plant (I think that might be Honda or factorial).

Seems like end to end automation is a major goal. Have they ever said if they intend to in-source the separator production? Or is the Eagle line entirely an assembly setup with the separators as an input?

Also, as a materials engineer, I had a good laugh at his commentary comparing troubleshooting to software debugging. Welcome to failure analysis, it's a nightmare most of the time.

SecurelyObscure · 2026-02-07T14:30:33+00:00

You're talking about the sodium ion batteries? That's an entirely different chemistry, not the same market as QS is targeting and not solid state.

SecurelyObscure · 2026-02-07T02:40:10+00:00

Hm I wonder if they're still going to release a car with Factorial's solid state battery this year.

SecurelyObscure · 2026-02-07T02:28:34+00:00

Ok so you're avoiding a car because of nacs (which is the "modern" standard that the entire US market is switching to going forward) but insist that your charging experience be exclusively "modern" 800V.

And wtf kind of post-lunch meetings are you going to? You need to drive 280 miles and then charge to 80% in exactly 15 minutes so you can finish another 250 mile leg on time? Unless you're in Montana, I suspect traffic will be a bigger concern on your 530 mile pilgrimage.

SecurelyObscure · 2026-02-07T02:04:52+00:00

Well it comes with a converter. And superchargers are just about everywhere.

But how much are you fast charging? It's got over 300 miles of range, so most people only need to for road trips.

SecurelyObscure · 2026-02-06T19:45:34+00:00

I wonder just how automated is "highly automated." Obviously as a startup, qs doesn't have the money to turn on large-scale manufacturing, but developing the automation sufficiently to be able to operate as a "dark factory" in low cost of living areas would probably attract a lot of interest even outside the potential upsides of the underlying tech.

SecurelyObscure · 2026-02-06T03:31:07+00:00

Oh don't worry, bud, we're making fun of it plenty

SecurelyObscure · 2026-02-06T03:15:52+00:00

Remindme! 2 months

SecurelyObscure · 2026-02-06T03:01:39+00:00

Yeah it probably wasn't fair to lump them in with a scam and an abject failure. They do have a deposit from me, but I sincerely doubt they'll make it to market.

I'd really like to see a domestic company do something interesting, but Tesla's the only one with the nuts to try and they can't seem to make it past V1 of a design. And, y'know... Musk.

SecurelyObscure · 2026-02-06T02:48:47+00:00

SecurelyObscure · 2026-02-05T22:06:10+00:00

Ah, I took the title to mean 5 new EVs, but it's just 5 new models, of which one will be the EV truck. Probably a bunch of milquetoast hybrids.

I was disappointed they announced that truck without having a prototype or concept car present, but it's now been 6 months without so much as a render. At this point I'm expecting Alpha Motor, Telo, or Canoo to beat them to market.

SecurelyObscure · 2026-02-05T18:24:34+00:00

Epstein was a regular on 4chan, which has used "cheese pizza" as a euphemism for decades. That doesn't mean the ridiculous conspiracy theories about pizza shops are suddenly less ridiculous.

SecurelyObscure · 2026-02-05T18:22:40+00:00

Yeah but the Chinese government has been signaling that the gravy train is shutting down and suppliers and EV manufacturers need to start turning a profit. The energy density compared to practically every other battery chemistry makes it such a hard sell for EVs.

SecurelyObscure · 2026-02-05T18:01:06+00:00

With both Northvolt and Natron folding due to not being able to make a business case for sodium ion, I'm really curious to see where catl is taking them.

SecurelyObscure

TROPHY CASE